34 SportsTurf | December 2014 www.sportsturfonline.com
Facility & Operations | By Mary Helen Sprecher
T
he three Rs used to be tongue-in-cheek shorthand
for "Reading, Writing and 'rithmetic." These days,
it's more about "Reuse, Recycle and Reduce."
The importance of being eco-friendly has perme-
ated every level of our society, including the sports world. Now,
sustainability—once limited to setting up waste containers for
paper and plastic at a ballgame—starts when the stadium is built.
Owners want an earth-friendly, energy-efficient building.
The trend has certainly hit the artificial turf industry. Now,
as the first generation of fields is hitting the end of its useful life,
the question is increasingly being asked: What to do with the
material that will be taken out? After all, a football, soccer or
lacrosse field is a lot of square footage, and the owners who had
that field put in would like to know that as it is being removed,
they have done their part in helping the environment.
Mark Heinlein, of Turf Reclamation Solutions (TRS), is
hearing the questions all the time. But, he admits, the answer isn't
always easy.
"I think there are a couple issues that need to be clarified
upfront," Heinlein states. "The first issue is what you mean when
you use the term, 'recycling.' Strictly speaking, recycling means
making new products from waste materials. This is not happen-
ing in the turf industry to any extent. In the field reclamation
business, recycling normally means either reusing or repurposing
the materials."
Heinlein defines reuse as taking up the field surface itself
and putting it someplace else as another field. Repurposing, he
says, means using the materials for something other than a field,
adding, "Because the reclaimed materials are not being processed
into new materials, it's confusing to refer to it as recycling."
Turf recycling:
the ongoing evolution of an industry
All
images
courtesy
of
Turf
Reclamation
Solutions